The number of homes and businesses using personal computers has increased substantially in recent years. Along with this increase has come an explosion in the use of the Internet, and particularly in the use of the World-Wide Web ("the Web"). The Web is a collection of formatted hypertext pages located on numerous computers around the world that are logically connected by the Internet. Advances in network technology, particularly software for providing user interfaces to the Web ("Web browsers"), have made the Web accessible to a large segment of the population. However, despite the growth in the development and use of the Web, many people are still unable to take advantage of this important resource.
Access to the Web has thus far been limited mostly to people who have access to a personal computer. However, many people cannot afford the cost of even a relatively inexpensive personal computer, while others are either unable or unwilling to learn the basic computer skills that are required to access the Web. Furthermore, Web browsers in the prior art generally do not provide the degree of user-friendliness desired by some people, and many computer novices do not have the patience to learn how to use the software. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an inexpensive means by which a person can access the Web without the use of a personal computer. In particular, it would be desirable for a person to be able to access the Web pages using an ordinary television set and a remote control, so that the person feels more as if he or she is simply changing television channels, rather than utilizing a complex computer network.
Computer systems often communicate data with each other over large distances using standard telephone lines (also known as "POTS," for Plain Old Telephone Service). Often a computer does not have a telephone line dedicated solely for its own use, however. Instead, a computer often uses a telephone line that is also used for standard telephone voice communication. Such dual use of the telephone line can cause problems for computers. For example, many conventional telephone services provide a feature known as "Call Waiting," which notifies a person involved in a telephone conversation when there is another incoming call on that line. The person receiving the new call generally is notified by an audible tone caused by a Call Waiting signal. In response, the person can either switch to the other call without disconnecting the call already in progress (a technique sometimes called "flashing") or simply ignore the new call. However, a Call Waiting signal can severely disrupt data communications if it is received while a computer is using the line.
Although some communications software provides the ability to disable the Call Waiting signal, doing so has the disadvantage that the computer's user generally has no way of knowing when someone is trying to reach him by telephone. Hence, it would be desirable to avoid severe disruptions without disabling the Call Waiting capability, particularly when browsing the Web.
Prior art systems that have accommodated Call Waiting during modem communications have done so only in client-to-client communications, and have only handled the case of both clients and modems being programmed to handle a Call Waiting interruption. Examples of such systems are a voice-over-data modem designed by Phylon, Inc., of Fremont, Calif., and a data-only modem designed by Catapult Entertainment of Cupertino, Calif. Both products are designed for video game play over a modem, and both handle Call Waiting interruptions by detecting the interruption, signaling the other client of the condition, and then both clients terminating the phone connection to allow the incoming call to be answered. When the call is completed, one modem dials the other to resume game play.
These two systems do not handle a more difficult condition: that of a client modem that is designed to handle a Call Waiting interruption which is dialed into a server modem that is not. For example, such a client modem might dial into a modem pool, such as that providing Internet access, which was designed using conventional modems. Since such conventional modems were designed with the assumption that dial-up would be through a phone connection that was not to be periodically interrupted by Call Waiting, they do not support the signaling and reconnect protocols that allowed the prior art video game modems to resume a connection smoothly after a Call Waiting interruption.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of server modems in use in the world today are conventional modems designed with the assumption that the dial-up is through a connection not periodically interrupted by Call Waiting. Thus, as a practical matter, the prior art video game modems, which rely on the system on the other side of the phone connection as including a Call Waiting aware modem and client, do not handle a client-server modem connection that is interrupted by Call Waiting.
In addition to the Call Waiting feature, some telephone services provide a feature known as Caller ID. Caller ID provides a person who receives a telephone call and who has the proper equipment with the phone number from which an incoming call originates. This service can be quite useful when the person receiving the call recognizes the number. However, people sometimes receive telephone calls originating from telephone numbers with which they are not familiar. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a Caller ID subscriber with more detailed information regarding the source of an incoming call. It would further be desirable to provide such information to a subscriber who is using the telephone line to browse the Web at the time the call is received.